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Professor Robert Bird, Chairman

Assistant Professor of Slavic Literature


405 Foster Hall
phone: (773) 702-8195
fax: (773) 702-7030
email: bird@uchicago.edu
homepage: http://home.uchicago.edu/~bird

Academic Training

  • Ph. D. Yale University, Dept. of Slavic Languages and Literatures, 9/1992-12/1998
  • B.A. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, 9/1988-6/1991
  • Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland, Summer 1994
  • Leningrad State University, CIEE Summer Program, Summer 1989


Academic Positions

  • University of Chicago
    • Assistant Professor, Slavic Languages and Literatures and the College, 7/2001-present
      • Undergraduate Courses 2001-2002:
        • Survey of Russian Literature (20th century); Russian and Polish Film, 1956-present (with Bozena Shallcross); humanities core curriculum ("Human Being and Citizen")
      • Graduate Courses 2001-2002:
        • The Narrative Poem of the 20th Century; Andrei Platonov and Contemporary Russian Criticism
  • Dickinson College
    • Assistant Professor, Department of Russian, 7/1998-6/2001
      • Courses in the Russian Language and Russian Literature and Culture
  • Yale University
    • Teaching Fellow, Slavic Languages and Literatures


Research Interests

  • Russian modernist literature and thought (Viacheslav Ivanov, Konstantin Balmont, Pavel Florensky, Sergei Bulgakov, Aleksei Losev, et al.)
  • Contemporary aesthetic theory and hermeneutics
  • Russian Spiritual History
  • Russian cinema and cinema theory


Select Bibliography

  • Books in progress:
    • Prospero: The Creative Universe of Viacheslav Ivanov.
    • Otrazhennyi svet: Etiudy o Viach. Ivanove
    • An Introduction to Russian Literature.
    • The Hermeneutic Tradition in Russian Thought.
    • The Spirituality of Russian Modernism and the Culture of the Renaissance and Baroque: A Comparative Study
  • Books edited:
    • Viacheslav Ivanov. Selected Essays. Translated and with notes by Robert Bird. Edited and with an introduction by Michael Wachtel. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2001. 328p.
    • With Boris Jakim. On Spiritual Unity: A Slavophile Anthology, Hudson, NY: Lindisfarne Press, 1998. 365p.
    • With Robert L. Jackson. The proceedings of the "Eternal Memory," a symposium on Viacheslav Ivanov, held at Yale University, 21 September 1996. Russian Literature XLIV no. 3 (1998).
    • Sergius Bulgakov. Orthodoxy and Modern Society. New Haven, 1995.
    • On Christian Unity: Essays by Pavel Florenskij and Lev Lopatin. New Haven, 1995.


Dissertation:

  • "The Tender Mystery: Romanticism and Symbolism in the Poetry and Thought of Viacheslav Ivanov." University Microfilms International no. 9925558.


Selected Articles and Book Chapters:

  • "Russian Writing/Writing Russia." Forthcoming in Russia and the West, ed. Russell Bova (M.E. Sharpe).
  • "The Tragedy of Theology: Sergei Bulgakov." Forthcoming in Religion, State and Society (UK).
  • "Bogoslovie o. Sergiia Bulgakova: Eres' ili ereseologiia" [Sergii Bulgakov's Theology]. Forthcoming (Moscow).
  • "Bibliografiia russkoi filosofii na angliiskom iazyke" [A Bibliography of Russian Philosophy in English]. Forthcoming in Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli. Ezhegodnik 2001
  • With E. V. Ivanova. "Byl li vinoven Bal'mont?" [Was Bal'mont Guilty?]. Forthcoming in Novyi mir (Moscow).
  • "Perepiska iz dvux uglov v kontekste." Forthcoming in the proceedings of the conference "Losevskie chteniia, 2000" (May 2000).
  • "Kommentarii k Perepiske iz dvukh uglov." [Commentary on Correspondence from Two Corners.] Viach. Ivanov: stat'i 1921-1949 [V. Ivanov: Essays 1921-1949) (forthcoming).
  • Review essay: "Russian Philosophy as Ideology." Slavic and East European Journal (forthcoming).
  • "The Geology of Memory: Pavel Florenskii's Hermeneutic Theology." Pavel Florenskij: tradition und modern. Eds. N. Franz, M. Hagemeister, F. Haney. Frankfurt et al.: Peter Lang, 2001. 83-95.
  • "Understanding Dostoevsky: A Comparison of Russian Hermeneutic Theories." Dostoevsky Studies: The Journal of the International Dostoevsky Society, New Series Volume V (2001) 129-46.
  • "YMCA i sud'by russkoi religioznoi mysli (1906-1947)." Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli. Ezhegodnik. 2000. Moscow: OGI, 2000. 165-223.
  • "S. N. Bulgakov. Religioznoe sostoianie russkogo naroda," edited and with an introduction by Robert Bird, Issledovaniia po istorii russkoi mysli. Ezhegodnik 2000. Moscow: OGI, 2000. 235-57.
  • "Kukushka i solovei: Viach. Ivanov i K. D. Bal'mont" [The Cuckoo and the Nightingale: V. Ivanov and K. Bal'mont]. Europa Orientalis vol. 19 (2000) 1-17.
  • "Viacheslav Ivanov v pervye gody emigratsii" [Viacheslav Ivanov in the First Years of Emigration]. Philologica, vol. 3 (Riga, 2000) 122-9.
  • "'Preobrazhenie muzykoi': Tsikl sonetov K.D. Bal'monta o Skriabine" [Konstantin Bal'mont's Cycle of Sonnets about Scriabin]. Forthcoming in Europa Orientalis vol. 18 (1999) 17-28.
  • "V. I. Ivanov i K. D. Bal'mont: tvorcheskie sviazi" [Viacheslav Ivanov and Konstantin Bal'mont]. _ 125-letiiu so dnia rozhdeniia Iurgisa Baltrushaitisa (Moscow, 1999) 74-90.
  • "Viacheslav Ivanov i sovetskaia vlast'. Neizvestnye materialy." Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie. No. 40 (1999) 305-331.
  • "Martin Heidegger and Nikolai Berdiaev." Newsletter of the Society for the Study of Russian Religious Thought V no.1 (7), Spring 1999. 10-22.
  • "A. F. Losev i V. I. Ivanov: Korni religioznoi germenevtiki" [Aleksei Losev and Viacheslav Ivanov: The Roots of a Religious Hermeneutic] Obraz mira ó struktura I tseloe. Losevskie chteniia (Moscow, 1999) 225-233.
  • "Martin Heidegger and Russian Symbolist Philosophy." Studies in East European Thought 51 (1999): 85-108.
  • "Viacheslav Ivanov and Theology." Russian Literature XLIV (1998) 357-77.
  • "Viacheslav Ivanov zarubezhom" [Viacheslav Ivanov Abroad]. Kul'tura russkoi diaspory: samorefleksiia i samoidentifikatsiia. (Tartu, 1997). 69-86.
  • "Vjaceslav Ivanov in Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library." Studia Slavica (Budapest) v. 41 (1996). 311-34.
  • "Sergius Bulgakov and the YMCA (1906-1940)." Symposion volume 1 (1996). 93-121.
  • "The Truth of the Inner Being: 'The Kreutzer Sonata' as a Tragedy of Forgiveness" Russian Literature no. 4 1996. 405-10.


Encyclopedia articles:

  • "Konstantin Balmont," "Pavel Florensky," "Viacheslav Ivanov." The Dictionary of Literary Biography: Silver Age. Eds. Alex Ogden and Judith Kalb. Forthcoming fromm Bruccoli, Clark, Layman.
  • "Fedor Dostoevsky," "Nikolai Gogol," "Viacheslav Ivanov," "Nikolai Karamzin," "Lev Tolstoy," "Ivan Turgenev." Multicultural Authors from Antiquity to 1945. Forthcoming from Greenwood Press (Oxford and Westport, Conn.).


Awards and Honors

  • IREX grant for Individual Advanced Research Opportunity (4 mths) 1998
  • Mellon Foundation Dissertation Fellowship 1996-97
  • Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library Summer Fellowship 1996
  • Enders Mini-Grant (Yale Graduate School) 1996
  • Yale Council on International and Area Studies Fellowship 1995
  • Sterling Fellowship (Yale Graduate School) 1992-94
  • Mellon Fellow in the Humanities 1992-94


Editorial and Administrative Experience

  • Editor of XB, a newsletter on Russian philosophy (4/94-).
  • Member of editorial board of Europa Orientalis (Rome)
  • Review editor and member of Advisory Editorial Board for Studies in East European Thought (The Netherlands)
  • Co-editor and Review Editor of Symposion. A Journal of Russian Thought (1996-97).
  • Proprietor of The Variable Press, a desk-top publishing and book-distribution firm.
  • Learned Societies:
  • AATSEEL, AAASS, Forschungsgruppe für russische Philosophie, Society for the Study of Russian Religious Thought, The Transnational Vladimir Solovyov Society